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Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Book Challenge Week #6: Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later

The very final book in the Sweet Valley series came out last year. One book to wrap up over 150 Sweet Valley High books as well as the countless spin off series (Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley Jr. High, The Unicorn Club, Sweet Valley Senior Year, Sweet Valley University, and Elizabeth)...holy God, Francine Pascal, the series creator, must be worth billions. Seriously.

I originally started reading the Sweet Valley books when I was about 6. I went to the library and wanted to read a book about someone with the same name as me. (Lord, what an narcissistic child.) Since one of the twins, the books primary characters, is named Jessica I was sold. I basically grew up with these books starting at Kids and going all the way to University with the same cast of characters.

Millions of females my age would feel my pain with the the way that Francine decided to end the series. Not that the very ending was horrible, the whole last book was....God AWFUL.

A third of the story takes place in New York where, after the biggest falling out EVER with Jessica, Elizabeth lives and works as a theatre critic. Who cares at ALL about her life in New York or the new characters that they introduce here! No one, carry on.

A third of the book is spent explaining why Jessica and Elizabeth haven't spoken in two years...it is Jessica's douchiest move ever. I will never get over it and neither should you. The last third of the story is about Jessica in Sweet Valley and the coming together of the two ladies for Jessica's wedding.

I am debating telling you what happened and what life had in store for all our favorite characters. Because I don't want any fan who hasn't already had Sweet Valley ruined for the for good have decided to let you know where they all end up:

SPOILER ALERT - read no farther if you don't want to know.

Lila Fowler and Ken Matthews got married and they live in Sweet Valley. In the last book they are going through a divorce. Ken is an NFL player.

Winston Egbert becomes a rich through a dot com venture, becomes kind of a douche and loses all his friends. We find out in this book that he dies by falling off of the balcony of his mansion.

Steven Wakefield, the twin's brother, married some chick, but is secretly gay and has a relationship with Jessica's former boyfriend Aaron Dallas. Jessica finds out and tells his wife and he is now with Aaron. They hate Jessica.

Enid, Elizabeth's high school bestie, becomes a gynecologist and is also a right-winged political person, kind of described as a betch.

Now for the fallout. We find out that Jessica and Todd had a thing in University when he was still dating Elizabeth. Winston found out and Todd stopped being friends with him (I blame Todd for his douchiness, lack of friends and inadvertently, his death). Later in life Todd and Elizabeth are still together and going to get married. Jessica comes to stay with them after a bad marriage and her and Todd end up getting back together. Elizabeth is pissed, moves to New York and doesn't speak to Jessica for 2 years. Her best friend is Bruce Patman (weird) and he is the only one she talks to from home. Jessica and Todd get engaged and the premise of the 'in the now' portion of the book is Jessica trying to patch things up with Liz to get her to come to the wedding. In the end Elizabeth is a total push-over, as usual, and comes to the wedding. She ends up getting together with Bruce who has been in love with her for a long time.

How effing LAME is that?! Seriously. They all came back and lived in Sweet Valley, lame. Jessica got married to Todd, lame. Elizabeth forgives her, lame.

Needless to say, this pissed me off more than Mockingjay. I mean Mockingjay was horrific, but this book ruined my entire childhood and an entire series of books. If a movie can be ruined by a bad ending, think about how destroyed the whole series was after reading this book.

Don't read it. Just don't. Damn you Francine, damn you straight to the worst part of hell.Not recommended.